Edited Amazon and Views Shot Up

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   melbelposted 13 years ago

   As per the new changes HubPages has made, I was required to make a few changes to the amount of Amazon products I was showing. I lowered the amount of products to lower than an average of 1 per 50 words on the hubs that HubPages has penalized. Furthermore, on hubs that weren't penalized I got rid of a few products on those, while still keeping Amazon products on all hubs.
   
   While going through different hubs, I also found myself making minor edits in the wording of some hubs and one hub received an entire restructuring.
   
   I also removed the "news" widget from all hubs as I was never really a fan of it. Since my changes yesterday, my hub views have shot up as did my HubScore. I receive an approximately 20% increase in traffic... the change does NOT count my own views as I've blocked my own IP from appearing in Google Analytics.
   
   I receive a nice number of sales through Amazon and have continued to do so (just at a lower amount) throughout the Google change, so I do not plan on eliminating Amazon from my hubs. One tip, though, you will do best with Amazon if you HANDPICK products related to your hub. I do best when I select products that have high ratings, for obvious reasons. If you cannot find products that are related to your hub, DO NOT add the Amazon widget because there is an extremely low chance that you will get a sale and furthermore, it will lower the value of your hub.
   
   Now, this is just ONE day, but I'm hoping to see this change be a part of a continuing upward ummm movement for myself and my fellow hubbers.
   
   Have you made any changes since the Google update? What difference are you seeing?
   
   EDIT: I wanted to add that it's actually probably more than 20% as the technically the day hasn't closed yet -- waiting for the last of the statistics to come in from Google Analytics.

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      CASE1WORKERposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      i did mine on saturday, so not that easy to tell, but three or four hubs which had no traffic, so to speak, have hits which is unusual.
      Also I like you, took the opportunity to review spellings, grammar etc and I also reviewed the tags, somewhat objectively. Google.com traffic increased overnight but whether this is the normal sunday night pattern or the start of a general rise owing to my actions, is debatable- let's see what the week brings

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      ryankettposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      This is most interesting, please do keep us updated as the story unfolds, I am still reflecting and considering at the moment so any observations are most appreciated. An update after a week would be fantastic for us all

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      Mark Knowlesposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      Google analytics updates once a day, so you cannot be using that for these stats.
      
      If you are using the hubpages stats - of course your views went up because they count your views.

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         ryankettposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         That is true.
         
         When did you start melbel? Because you wouldn't have seen todays Amazon sales either?
         
         Are you referring to the previous day?

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         CASE1WORKERposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         I have an o level in maths and can subtract my views- i can also use my toes should i run out of fingers

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            Mark Knowlesposted 13 years agoin reply to this

            
            
            I got one of them too. Still - if my own views are a noticeable quantity - I am in trouble.

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               CASE1WORKERposted 13 years agoin reply to this

               one toe? you poor soul, I do hope it is not uncomfortable

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                  CMHypnoposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                  I always knew that being born with extra digits would come in useful one day!

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                     CASE1WORKERposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                     my mum's cat has 9 toes on each paw! still cant count though

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                        CMHypnoposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                        Think that I was born with 10 fingers on each hand so that I could type faster LOL! Still can't count though - so the exercise of 1 Amazon product for 50 words made me very grateful that they had invented calculators.  But I did find that a lot of hubs did not have a flag but still did not comply with new rules, so I checked them all.  Traffic has improved, but not sure whether it is because of removing those Amazon products.

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                  lyndreposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                  I only have five.

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   kephriraposted 13 years ago

   I edited a third of my 300 or so hubs a few of days ago, reducing amazon products and also reducing other links a little bit. I just did that many and stopped as a little test, and the ones I edited do seem to have had a bit more traffic. One in particular that has earned well for me in the past and which had a big drop has regained about half the traffic it lost.
   
   Things seem to be fluctuating so much for me its hard to tell for sure that it was my editing, but I am going to go ahead and do the same thing with the rest (going beyond the new hubpages requirement).

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3. 92

   melbelposted 13 years ago

   I'm using Analytics, it updates more than once a day, it's usually every few hours. I usually find that it doesn't gather everything until 4 am. By default, however, you are unable to see the current day's stats without changing the date on the little calendar thing.
   
   You can see the current day's stats by changing the date in the calendar, by default it only shows the last month's activity up until the previous day (yesterday) but by editing your calendar, you can see the current day's stats.
   
   So, my views aren't being counted since I don't use HubPages counter as a clear indicator of my traffic (it's my number one wish to be able to exclude my IP from HubPages traffic counter as it would be easier to see which hubs are getting the traffic -- you CAN do this in Analytics but it's a pain since it's not really "open in a new tab friendly". All the analytics have come in showing a 32% change up from yesterday. I'll look into it and see if those came from the search engine OR whether or not it's more traffic from some random forum post floating around out there as I got a big traffic surge from something someone posted in some forum last week. I'll let you guys know.
   
   But, toggle that Google Analytics calendar, it's a lot of fun to play around with and is something I've found helpful not only here on hubpages but on my websites as well. Best of luck to you all!
   
   ryankett, as for amazon sales, I'm speaking of Google change to date. It's been hurt a little bit, but overall not bad.

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      Mark Knowlesposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      I did not know you could manually watch individual page impressions in real time in analytics. You learn something new every day. Not likely to use it - but thanks.
      
      Good for you though. I edited around 200 hubs and saw no appreciable difference. 3 extra views to a hub with 7 views the day before is not worth considering as far as I am concerned - so I watch them in larger batches instead.
      
      Having seen around a 90% loss in Amazon sales - I am keen to get them back on track, but I suspect I will just have to be patient. Some niches have not been hard hit, and I have seen a small drop in traffic - but the valuable ones have been hit hard.

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         melbelposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         Yeah, same here. My increase has mostly been on the little hubs that receive only a handful of views a day, just receiving a handful more on those. My best hubs have been hit very hard... I'm hoping those will climb back up to where they were. For right now, I'm just hoping some of these lesser hubs of mine gain more traction.
         
         I also wanted to mention that things aren't going swimmingly over here, either. From pre-Google change to today, I'm still seeing a reduced amount of traffic. When I say I'm doing better, I mean, well, since the initial hit and the days after where traffic continued to drop. I am hoping this is a moment where the pendulum swings back up.
         
         It's my hope that the changes that HubPages has made will be enough for the higher quality hubs to rise back to the top of the search engines.
         
         It disheartens me to see that one of my hubs, which has generated a large amount of press in the past, which then caused more Internet users to write on the topic -- has found its way to #5 or #6 in Google search where it used to be #1 and #2.

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            Mark Knowlesposted 13 years agoin reply to this

            If you are number 5 or 6 - you can get it back to number 1. Question is - is it worth it? What I have seen is - although I still rank reasonably well for the main keyword, I am not ranking for all the semantically related searches, that I was ranking for - 75-90% loss of traffic to some pages.
            
            Not convinced having less products is the way to go. I am actively promoting the ones I deem most likely to return to income. I don't do "hoping," any more.
            
            Having said that - I am "hoping" hubpages cleans house pretty quickly - I am doing my bit but with 1.2 million published hubs - they have a lot of work to get rid of the dross.

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               ryankettposted 13 years agoin reply to this

               I have lost out 'semantically' too.
               
               For example, my article Funny Facebook Status Ideas may well be number one for the term Funny Facebook Status Ideas.
               
               Putting asides the fact that it was number one for 'funny facebook status' which is absolutely huge, rankings for stuff like 'hilarious facebook status', 'clever facebook status', etc, are the ones which have plummeted and this is where I have lost out too.
               
               For a number of hubpages that is, but there is an example for you.

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   melbelposted 13 years ago

   Haha, I see your point. I'm going to let Google do its thing and let HubPages do what they are doing. There really are some pretty useless hubs on here that, if I were a Google search user unknowing of the awesome community behind HubPages, I would think what I've found is a bunch of junk -- not HubPages as a whole, but there ARE those hubs.
   
   My question is, what does HubPages do about content that's clearly written with the aim of the search engines, but aren't "bad" in the way that there are excessive links, lots of products, duplicated content? --- I mean, there is stuff on here that doesn't break any rules but really is fluffy junk.
   
   Sometimes I'll come across a hub and wish I could flag it for just generally sucking. I know it sounds mean, but there ARE those hubs.
   
   That said, there are many great hubs on HubPages and many unsung heroes here that put their all in their hubs -- haha, probably more-so than me (but I'm improving all my crappy ones.)
   
   Ryankett, thank you for the really personalized example. I'd known for quite a while that you ranked like crazy for that one. It's sad that even on HubPages, there have been people who have, well, followed suit with that idea. I never copy another hubber's idea unless:
   -I know I can do it way better
   -I have a genuine interest in the topic
   -I wrote on the topic without knowing there was an existing hub
   -My new hub has a similar topic, but targets different keywords
   -Or in the funniest thing ever - in a contest where me an Princessa each wrote a hub with the same title (slight different url, obviously) and on the same topic... totally hilarious because I think we submitted them minutes apart, too!
   
   That said, I think you'll always outrank the other hubbers who have copied your idea and hopefully you rise to the top again for your keywords relating to that topic.

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      kephriraposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      You can vote down rubbish hubs without flagging them, but if hubpages internal links are devalued then making a hub less prominent on hubpages probably won't do much to hurt its google rankings.

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         CASE1WORKERposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         it's not enough, we have to flag, if in doubt still flag, another person will either share your view or not

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   mcbeanposted 13 years ago

   I have noticed this in the past before the google algorithm change as well. I thought it was due to an edited hub being bumped back into the "latest" section of my profile page, the category page and for all the tags as well.
   When I saw this temporary increase it was also made up nearly exclusively of hubpages traffic so was not really of interest to me.
   Does your analytics show search engine traffic melbel?

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      CASE1WORKERposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      google analytics shows an immense amount of detail, even the town from whence the hub was viewed and how many times!

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   workingmomwmposted 13 years ago

   I also edited my Amazon/eBay capsules, and my views shot up yesterday. It doesn't look like they're going to maintain that today, though. I could be wrong ...

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   IzzyMposted 13 years ago

   Anytime a hub is edited, it seems to get a little boost in the rankings. Doubt if removing a few Amazon capsules or news feeds would show an instant change, but adding more text here and there would.
   Also, my traffic has dipped severely every weekend since the change, coming back up again Sunday/Monday and from reading the forums I think most people have had a similar pattern even if they haven't noticed its been tied to the weekend - specifically Thursday through to Sunday.
   I think after making any changes to a hub - removing feeds etc - you want to watch its traffic over at least a month, else make the changes at the start of the week so as not to be hit by the weekend dip.

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   lrohnerposted 13 years ago

   FWIW, my traffic also shot up yesterday, and it was probably the best traffic day I've had since the smackdown. But it had nothing to do with editing hubs or eliminating capsules.
   
   The only hub editing I've done so far was on some of my Christmas hubs which obviously aren't the ones getting any traffic this time of year.

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   Mikeydoesposted 13 years ago

   I'm seeing red arrows after editing around 20 hubs. Not a huge increase, but not bad.
   
   I was going to do more, but I really need to have a lot of time on my hands to do a good job, because I'd like to do some editing on most as well.

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    Stacie Lposted 13 years ago

    i have to agree and say that my stats are improving as well.
    I deleted all news capsules, maps, some links and reduced amazon and eBay products.
    

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    Princessaposted 13 years ago

    I've been plannig to upgrade my hubs for a while.  It looks like now is a good time for it.  It is encouraging to read that it has had positive effects to update old hubs.

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    melbelposted 13 years ago

    I have also experienced a slight increase again today, but it way very slight... just over 3%

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    jrcemailposted 13 years ago

    For me, here's the weird part.  The rankings look like they're the same when I take a look individually(not high on the Google index).....BUT the traffic is approaching pre-Google Slap levels all across the board.
    
    I took out all RSS, all Amazon, didn't have any Ebay to begin with.
    
    I did have related topic links on some but the ratio of these to the total amount of hubs is very small.
    
    I've got to admit, when I take a look at the revised hubs now....they're "boring-er"!  Will need to spruce them up but I have to count how much that will make a difference or not.

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    Polly Cposted 13 years ago

    I have 110 product hubs on another account, and was pleased to see a good increase in traffic for the first time in ages with many newer hubs starting to pick up. However, further research shows that most of the traffic is coming from elsewhere, especially the UK. Haven't even made a sale for about 3 weeks, and I was seeing daily sales before. Although my traffic is not very high compared to many people I feel the hubs used to target the right people.

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    melbelposted 13 years ago

    I should have bit my tongue when I said my sales on Amazon hadn't really been affected -- I have made zero sales since then. Lol!
    
    My traffic is still going up, but I wouldn't really say "going up" as it's so minute that it's nearly just staying the same. That said, I guess any increase is better than none. Here are some graphs showing my traffic changes if anyone is interested:
    
    http://i702.photobucket.com/albums/ww26 … a/56e0.jpg
    http://i702.photobucket.com/albums/ww26 … a/03b6.jpg

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